The Penguin Who Knew Too Much (8 page)

“And say what? ‘Please don’t tick Meg off just when she's finally agreed to marry me’ won’t work, obviously, unless you’ve given up all hope of keeping our planned elopement secret.”

“I’ll think of something,” he said. “Meanwhile, I came over to let you know that your mother has arrived with lunch.”

“Excellent.”

“And Rose Noire wanted me to tell you to hurry up if you’re taking her class. She's starting right after lunch.”

“Her class? What's she teaching this time—more aromatherapy?”

“Massage and acupressure for animals.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Oh, come on. She claims it does wonders to calm and mellow animals. Think how useful that would be with Spike.” “I’d sooner massage one of the hyenas.”

Chapter 12

As we strolled back to the house, I mused that I wouldn’t mind watching Rose Noire's class—at least if I could talk her into demonstrating on Spike. But since childhood, Rose Noire had always assumed that “I’d rather just watch” meant that you needed a little more coaxing. And I suspected she was planning to have her pupils practice on some of the sheep that had, as usual, wandered over from Seth Early's pasture across the street. So if the class was starting after lunch, I’d eat and run.

We found Mother presiding over a buffet table, looking tall, cool, and elegant in one of her summer party dresses, not a single strand of improbably blond hair out of place. Mrs. Fenniman and the other family members who’d actually done the food preparation scurried back and forth from the kitchen with plates and bowls. Someone had moved one of our picnic tables to the far end of the lawn, apparently so Chief Burke and his officers could discuss the case privately while eating their lunches.

At least two members of the investigation team were paying little attention to the discussion. Sammy and Horace kept glancing over at the part of the lawn where my cousin Rose Noire was whiling away the time until her planned class began by ministering to Dr. Smoot.

The M.E. was still sprawled in one of our Adirondack chairs, looking picturesquely frail. He had a compress over his eyes and
a steaming teacup in one hand, and Rose Noire appeared to be trying to light some sort of incense at his feet.

“I see Rose Noire has found a new victim for her aromatherapy,” Michael said. “At least she's doing it outdoors.”

“She knows I’d kill her if she tried it in the house again,” I said with a shudder. Several weeks before, in a well-meaning attempt to add a note of romance to Michael's and my harried life, Rose Noire had sneaked into the house on Friday afternoon and burned an excessive amount of what she claimed was aphrodisiac incense. Unfortunately, Michael had turned out to be allergic to something in the incense, so instead of a romantic weekend we had suffered through what we both still referred to as The Big Sneeze.

“At least Smoot doesn’t seem to mind,” Michael said, shaking his head.

“I think he's enjoying the attention,” I said.

Seth Early, who owned the sheep farm across the road from our house, was also casting hostile stares at Dr. Smoot. I sighed. I hoped Rose Noire wasn’t accidentally recruiting Dr. Smoot to her legion of suitors. It was bad enough with Sammy, Horace, and Seth Early infatuated with her.

As I watched, Mr. Early stood up, walked over to a small clump of sheep, and began pummeling one of them, frowning savagely. I opened my mouth to protest, and then realized that he wasn’t just relieving his anger—he was giving the sheep a back massage. And the sheep was happy. It had closed its eyes and was leaning toward him, while the other sheep shuffled about nudging and shoving it as if impatient for their turn.

Yes, definitely a good idea to leave before the animal-massage class began.

Nearby, Montgomery Blake was sitting at the head of another picnic table, with something on his shoulder—a small gray ani
mal, halfway between a cat and a monkey, with a long black-and-white striped tail. Another of the somethings was sitting on the table, holding a slice of apple in its slender paws and nibbling at it.

“Let me guess—lemurs?” I murmured to Michael.

“Got it in one. Ring-tailed lemurs, to be precise.”

One of the lemurs turned my way, revealing enormous yellow eyes with black rings around them, like a raccoon's. In a zoo, I’d have found them unremittingly cute, but this was our backyard, and the lemurs seemed to be consuming an impressive amount of fruit. Odds were they’d be producing an impressive amount of raw material for Sheila Flugleman, and didn’t lemurs live in trees?

“Uh... Meg?” Rob sidled up with an apologetic look on his face.

“What's wrong?” I asked. “There are some reporters here.” “Tell them to go away and stop bothering us.” “Oh, it's okay—they don’t want to bother us,” he said. “They want to bother the chief.”

“Great,” I said. “Go tell him.”

“Couldn’t you tell him?” Rob said. “He always yells so when he thinks someone is interrupting his investigation.”

“What makes you think he won’t yell at me just as much as at you?” I said. “In fact, he’d probably yell even more at me.”

“Yeah, but you’re used to it.”

I sighed with exasperation. Rob was probably right. I was more used to getting yelled at, and it bothered me less than it would him, but that didn’t mean I liked it. I headed over to the chief's table. But before I got there, I spotted something that let me off the hook.

“Too late,” I said, to no one in particular. “Here they come.”

A pack of reporters was just rounding the corner of the house.

In the lead was the bubbly blonde who, rumor had it, would be deserting the local TV station any day now for a job at one of the Richmond stations. Close on her heels was a far more polished-looking blonde who already worked for one of the Richmond TV stations. A chic African American woman from the Caer-philly radio station followed at a more stately pace, as if to suggest that the real excitement couldn’t possibly begin until she arrived anyway. The two TV cameramen trotted along next, each following his designated reporter, while bringing up the rear was a disheveled young man from the student newspaper, who seemed to be paying more attention to his distinguished colleagues than to the event that had lured them here. The chief looked up and scowled.

“As if we didn’t have enough damned hyenas already,” he muttered. Then he put on his bland, no-comment face and stood up to meet the press. The cameramen deployed their cameras, and all three women thrust microphones in the chief's face.

“Chief Burke, can you confirm—,” the local blonde began.

“When will you release the identity—,” the Richmond blonde said at the same time.

The radio reporter just made sure her microphone was in the thick of the pack, while the journalism student began scribbling wildly with one hand while trying to aim his digital camera at the chief with the other.

“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen,” the chief said in his rich, mellow baritone. “I see you’ve saved me the trouble of calling a press conference. We’re here to investigate the discovery of a dead body. The deceased was Dr. J. Patrick Lanahan, thirty-seven, the founder of our beloved Caerphilly Zoo. Dr. Lanahan's next of kin have been notified, and for the time being, we’re treating the death as a homicide.”

“For the time being?” I heard Dad mutter beside me.

“If he finds a suicide note I, for one, am not buying it,” I whispered back.

“I regret to say that's all the information I can give you at this time,” the chief said. The reporters started shouting more questions, but the chief raised his voice and talked through them. “However, I’m sure you’ll all be excited to learn that Dr. Montgomery Blake, the world-famous naturalist and a friend of the deceased, is here today, and would like to say a few words about the sad plight of the animals from the Caerphilly Zoo.”

I wondered if Blake and the chief had planned this for when the reporters showed up or if Blake was just normally quick on his feet. He strode over with the lemur still perched on his shoulder, shook the chief's hand as if they were old school chums, and then turned to the cameras with that familiar benevolent smile. The fact that the lemur had grabbed a double fistful of his white mane and was holding on for dear life somehow looked charming rather than silly.

I wasn’t in the mood to listen to speeches. I saw Mother going into the kitchen, and I decided to join her. So I heard Blake's short but glowing tribute to the fine work Lanahan had done at the zoo, followed by a few noncommittal words about his hope that some way could be found for this fine work to continue. Blake was well launched on an impassioned description of the plight of endangered species by the time I ducked through the kitchen door.

“So—you think he did it, don’t you?”

Chapter 13

I turned to find that the student reporter had followed me inside.

“Come on, I know you suspect Blake,” he said.

Was my reaction to Blake that obvious, or was that just a reporter's trick to make me talk?

“I’m sure I have no idea who's guilty,” I said. “What makes you think I suspect him?”

“The way you were frowning when he started speaking. What have you got on him?”

I glanced outside where Blake was still orating.

“It's called canned hunting,” Blake was saying. “Basically, it amounts to trapping animals in an enclosure and allowing so-called hunters to shoot them at will. There's no real skill or sport involved.... “

It sounded despicable. Blake was right to fight it. And he was on the side of the angels when it came to endangered species. A staunch conservationist. Why did I find him so easy to dislike? And so easy to suspect?

“I don’t have anything on him,” I said. “I approve of his work. I’ve given money to his foundation. But I hate listening to speeches—even ones I agree with. Now shoo.”

The reporter reluctantly shuffled outside again, and went over to join the crowd around Blake, who was still talking, and feeding the lemur a slice of peach. Through the screen door, I could
see that Blake was keeping his face as close as possible to the lemur to make sure he stayed on camera. After all, Blake might be famous, but the lemur was a lot cuter, and endangered to boot.

“Good riddance,” Mother said with a sniff. “I don’t see why everyone is making such a fuss about that annoying Dr. Blake anyway.”

“Especially considering how he's spoiling so much of Dad's fun,” I said.

“And that young man does have a point,” she said. “Dr. Blake could be a suspect. I think you should check him out. We don’t really know why he's here, now do we? Is the Caerphilly Zoo really the kind of project he’d normally spend his time on?”

“I’m sure the chief has already thought of that, Mother,” I said. “For all we know, he's already identified the murderer.”

“That would be nice,” Mother said. “And if he hasn’t, I’m sure you and your father will help him out. We don’t want this unfortunate business to spoil all your lovely plans for the weekend, now do we?”

I was momentarily startled—Mother was absolutely the last person in the world Michael and I wanted finding out about The Plan. Had she guessed?

Probably not; I realized she was probably only referring to the move, and the giant Memorial Day cookout and house-warming party we had scheduled for Monday. The party we planned to duck out of early, so we could race over to the Clay County courthouse to tie the knot as quickly, simply, and privately as possible. I’d already mentally composed the note we were going to send back to our guests: “Thanks for coming to our wedding reception. We’ve already taken off for the honeymoon. Have fun while we’re gone, and don’t break too much.”

But I hadn’t committed it to paper, and I’d been extremely careful not to say anything that might give her the slightest clue.

Had I been a little too careful? Dad liked to brag about my marvelous detective ability, but if I had any skill in that area, it was Mother I’d inherited it from.

The best defense is a strong offense, they say.

“You’re up to something,” I said. “What is it?”

Mother assumed her most innocent look, and just then the chief strolled into the kitchen.

“If you folks want to carry on with your moving, that's fine with me,” he said. “As long as you stay out of the basement. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to sneak the body out this way, while the reporters are all fawning at Blake's feet.”

“Sneak him out?” Mother asked. “Why do you need to sneak?” Not one of her favorite words—she was fond of saying that if it would embarrass us to see something we did in a photo on the front page of the
Daily Press
, we shouldn’t do it.

“Maybe it's foolish of me,” the chief said, “but I just don’t approve of seeing pictures of a murder victim all over the newspaper or the TV screen—not even in a body bag. It's just not seemly. But I haven’t had much luck bringing the damned press around to my point of view, so all I can do is try to sneak the body out when they’re otherwise engaged. So if you don’t mind, while Blake's still going strong...”

“Be my guest,” I said. “I’ll go out front and sound the alarm if one of them appears. And if they do show up before you can get him out, maybe we could sneak him out under cover of the move.”

“I’ll watch the back door, and then tell the family we’re starting work again,” Mother said. I could tell from her face that she approved of the chief's scruples.

The front yard was blissfully empty. No reporters, no family members, and no stray animals.

“All clear?” the chief asked from inside the front door.

“All clear,” I said, and stepped back to give them plenty of room. The chief supervised as Sammy and Horace wheeled a small gurney out, picked it up to go down the front steps, and then scurried over to our driveway, where they deposited the body bag in the back of a pickup truck.

“Isn’t that Michael's truck?” I asked, startled.

“He's going to drive us,” the chief said. “Mort down at the funeral home says the hearse blew a rod, and he doesn’t know when the garage will have it running again.”

“And if anyone asks,” Michael said, striding out onto the porch, “I’ve gone into town to fetch a load of the stuff I’ve been keeping in the corner of my office. Which is exactly what I will be doing after we drop Patrick off at the funeral home.”